The browser war in China is heating up but not quite in a way that resembles the Western markets, as Mozilla's Beijing chief explains.
While browser makers in overseas markets often tout their products' Web page rendering speeds and ability to run richer apps, China's browser landscape calls for customized browser versions that bring additional features in order to demonstrate value to users.
According to Li Gong, chairman and CEO of Mozilla's Beijing-headquartered subsidiary, Mozilla Online, the proliferation of Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) clones and the dominance of pages coded for IE are among some of the barriers Firefox faces in the country.
"China is different from other markets in that there is a very active IE-clone market," said Li, in an e-mail interview with ZDNet Asia.
An IE clone is a browser built on IE's core rendering engine, but carries a different skin and has additional features. Citing numbers from iResearch, Li said there are some 30 different clones in use in China.
Some clone browser makers have employed aggressive tactics to get their browsers adopted, he said. Some have been willing to pay fees to be bundled with pirated Windows disks--"the easiest distribution channel", said Li--while others pay members of the media to tout their wares.
More: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/internet/0,39044908,62059405,00.htm
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While browser makers in overseas markets often tout their products' Web page rendering speeds and ability to run richer apps, China's browser landscape calls for customized browser versions that bring additional features in order to demonstrate value to users.
According to Li Gong, chairman and CEO of Mozilla's Beijing-headquartered subsidiary, Mozilla Online, the proliferation of Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) clones and the dominance of pages coded for IE are among some of the barriers Firefox faces in the country.
"China is different from other markets in that there is a very active IE-clone market," said Li, in an e-mail interview with ZDNet Asia.
An IE clone is a browser built on IE's core rendering engine, but carries a different skin and has additional features. Citing numbers from iResearch, Li said there are some 30 different clones in use in China.
Some clone browser makers have employed aggressive tactics to get their browsers adopted, he said. Some have been willing to pay fees to be bundled with pirated Windows disks--"the easiest distribution channel", said Li--while others pay members of the media to tout their wares.
More: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/internet/0,39044908,62059405,00.htm
